Intel, who are key collaborators in the Marine Institute-led SmartBay consortium, have announced a new Energy and Sustainability Lab in Ireland.
The announcement was made last Thursday 14th October by An Taoiseach Mr. Enda Kenny T.D. and Intel’s Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner during the annual Intel European Research and Innovation Conference (ERIC) on the Intel campus in Leixlip.
(Picture Left to Right: Dr. Peter Heffernan, CEO Marine Institute, EU Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, An Taoiseach Mr. Enda Kenny T.D. and Mr. Eamonn Sinnott, Intel Ireland General Manager and Vice President Technology Manufacturing Group, Intel Ireland at the event.)
The announcement was made after both the Taoiseach and EU Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn had delivered keynote addresses to the conference delegates, in which both underpinned the role of research and innovation. The new Energy and Sustainability Lab (ESL) initiative has an extensive research portfolio leveraging a growing ecosystem of academic and industrial partners in Europe and beyond. The lab is a key collaborator in the SmartBay project, lead by the Marine Institute. SmartBay is a test and demonstration research infrastructure which is a foundation platform for an emerging ocean technologies cluster.
“The SmartBay vision is to provide a marine based research, test and demonstration platform which will encourage leading edge researchers and industry consortia to collaborate together on important commercial and environmental research to develop new products and services to tap into the global market for environmental technologies,” said Dr. Peter Heffernan, CEO of the Marine Institute, who was speaking at the conference. “The objective is to advance opportunities associated with marine resource development and to enhance our ability to monitor and manage our marine resources. The strategic objectives are aligned with Sea Change – Ireland’s marine knowledge, research and innovation strategy for 2007 - 2013.”
Since 2005, the Marine Institute has worked in collaboration with key agencies such as the EPA, Enterprise Ireland and the IDA as well as industry SME’s and multinationals such as Intel, to develop a national Marine Technology R&D Programme. This programme, together with increasing international interest in establishing coastal and ocean observatories, led to the concept of SmartBay. In 2007, the Marine Institute undertook an assessment of potential locations for a pilot project on the West coast of Ireland. This resulted in the selection of Galway Bay.
“Smart infrastructure test beds such as SmartBay coupled with the progressive thinking in Europe in the areas of energy and sustainability have been key factors for Intel in headquartering ESL in Ireland,” said Dr. Martin Curley, Director Intel Labs Europe, who was present at the launch. “Intel Labs Europe has been a key initiator in the establishment of SmartBay and continues to support and avail of the facility to develop and test a number of innovative ICT platforms with the aim of creating both green and blue growth through digitising the ocean with pervasive low cost sensing.”
The SmartBay pilot project includes the deployment of a range of instrumentation, including environmental monitoring buoys, wave monitoring instrumentation and a flow gauge on the River Corrib. Technical research projects are being undertaken as part of the SmartBay Pilot. These are in the areas of data management, telemetry, climate change research and hydrodynamic modelling. The future development of the SmartBay project will lead to the establishment of cabled hub infrastructure in Galway bay and the establishment of test and demonstration facility for new technologies.
ENDS
For further information please contact:
Dr. John Joyce - Communications Manager, Marine Institute
Ph: 087 2250871
Notes to Editor
SmartBay is a flagship innovation platform under the SmartOcean Strategy which aims to facilitate the convergence of expertise in areas in which Ireland has a strong and internationally recognised capabilities (e.g. informatics, communications, sensors, software, control systems, mechanical engineering and materials science).
The vision is to link this technological capability with traditionally strong marine science expertise to enable Irish companies to deliver new products and services for global export markets. SmartBay is also an example of a smart infrastructure supporting the triple helix innovation of public, private and academic research partnerships and the delivery of world class research outputs under the FP7 programme.
About the Intel Energy and Sustainability Lab
Intel ESL is a key participant in the Sustainable Electrical Energy Systems research consortium at University College Dublin and the ITOBO SFI research cluster for smart and energy efficient buildings based in University College Cork.
The ESL is also a key research collaborator with the Fraunhofer Institute( Germany), KEMA (Netherlands) and VTT ( Finland) on the EU Framework 7 REViSITE research project defining the EU ICT for Energy Efficiency research roadmap for Europe.
Intel ESL also recently announced the ‘Sustainable Cities’ research program; a partnership with Trinity College Dublin and Dublin City Council, leading to pilot deployments of Sustainable City Technologies including a prototype ambient intelligence sensing platform.
The lab is a key partner in the SmartBay project lead by the Irish Marine Institute. SmartBay is a test and demonstration research infrastructure which is a foundation platform for an emerging Ocean technologies cluster.
The Lab is actively partnering with the IDA sponsored I2E2 technology centre to apply energy efficiency to Manufacturing in Ireland, for example, Intel ESL has redesigned an existing datacentre on the Intel Ireland campus to leverage ambient air cooling and other techniques with projected energy savings of >20% annually.
About Intel Labs Europe
Intel R&D / Innovation in Europe is driven by a network of research labs, product development labs and innovation labs spanning the region as well as a variety of Intel business units. Intel Labs Europe (ILE) was formally established in early 2009 as the central means of coordinating activities across this diverse and extensive network, and to strengthen and improve Intel’s alignment with European R&D. Today ILE consists of more than two dozen R&D locations employing more than 1500 R&D professionals, with a further 9 labs and 2000 R&D professionals added through the Intel Mobile Communications acquisition.
The mission of ILE is to advance Intel research, development and innovation and to partner with European stakeholders to help improve European competitiveness. To achieve this ILE aims to strengthen Intel’s relationships and collaborations with European researchers and to align the company’s technology vision with European policy makers across a broad technology agenda. ILE has grown existing initiatives and continually seeks new opportunities to advance the value of ICT solutions for society and business
About Intel
Intel is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s computing devices.
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